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Women’s Health West engages in advocacy designed to change the structural factors that cause and maintain the conditions under which women and their children face discrimination. The titles below link to our submissions to government in response to white papers, inquiries, legislation and the like.

Changes to the family violence information sharing legislation will provide sustainable system-wide improvements that support the safety of women and children affected by family violence, hold perpetrators to account, and reduce the incidence of family violence in Victoria. Women’s Health West supports legislation that is clear and concise and enables front-line practitioners to effectively apply it in practice.

Women’s Health West welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback to the Federal Government for the Inquiry into Domestic Violence and Gender Inequality. We provided fourteen recommendations. Our submission highlighted the various ways in which rigid gender stereotypes contribute to cultural conditions that fuel family violence as per the terms of reference provided by the Federal Government. We also included key measures to redress gender inequity as a key driver of family violence, including promoting women’s participation in leadership and decision making roles, redressing the pay and superannuation gap, increasing paid parental leave entitlements and funding accessible childcare services across Australia.

Women and Royal Commission Branch, Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet

The business case for government action on gender equity is clear. It enhances health and wellbeing, quality of life, improves work productivity and economic growth, increases the capacity for learning and education, and contributes to poverty reduction, social inclusion and civic participation. Achieving gender equity for Victorian women and girls is a long-term goal, which requires a long-term strategy. Women’s Health West would like to congratulate the Victorian government on its commitment to achieving gender equity in Victoria via the development of the state’s first Gender Equality Strategy. We deem this a significant milestone for the advancement of equality, safety and justice for Victorian women and girls. Women’s Health West’s submission provides twenty-three recommendations to support and strengthen the effective implementation of this strategy.

Women’s Health West deems the Australian Labor Party’s intent to amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) (Criminal Code) to criminalise ‘revenge porn’ under federal law to be highly important in creating a gender equitable, safe, inclusive and fair Australia for women and girls. We assert that this is a gendered phenomenon and recommend that the federal government respond to ‘revenge porn’ within the broader framework of men’s violence against women.

This open letter addressed to the Premier, Minister for Health and Minister for Women is written in support of Victoria’s current abortion laws. Women’s Health West is one of 40 signatory organisations to the letter. “We do not support further restrictions on when an abortion can be provided, nor changes to section 8 or any other part of this or any other Act that would reduce women’s access to appropriate, safe and legal abortions.”

Women’s Health West welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback to Victoria’s next 10-year mental health strategy and commends the Victorian government for the development of this strategy. To strengthen the strategy’s capacity to optimise the mental health and wellbeing of all Victorians, WHW recommended a stronger commitment to gender equity and the social determinants that drive good mental health, as well as promoting a society where Victorians live free from violence and discrimination through effective primary prevention, early intervention and response efforts.

Women’s Health West supports the principle of portable long service leave and is pleased that the Committee will examine existing portable long service leave schemes, the financial and economic impacts of portable long service leave arrangements and whether alternative mechanisms could better meet the objectives of such a scheme. Our recommendations proposed a cost neutral model that ensures against a loss of funds to support service delivery, that funds be provided to support additional costs of portability, that a business impact assessment and consultation is undertaken prior to implementation, that the model be administratively simple and that it includes a wide range of sectors.

Women’s Health West welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback and recommendations to the Laying the Groundwork – Consultation Paper for the Residential Tenancies Act 2007. Our eight recommendations included a call for sex-disaggregated data pertaining to tenancy and embedding gender-responsive principles in the new Act, the development of a long-term affordable housing strategy, a dedicated supply of low cost housing to means tested households, protections for tenants so they are not discriminated against due to factors unrelated to tenancy, improved measures to sustain tenancies and prevent homelessness for women who can safely stay in their housing, and establishing a rapid rehousing program to assist women and children escaping family violence.

WHW welcomed the opportunity to provide evidence and recommendations for the Inquiry into Abuse in Disability Services and commend the Victorian Government for initiating this inquiry. Our nine recommendations included a call for the collection of sex disaggregated data regarding incidence of abuse within disability services, a state-wide gender audit of disability services, examination of the evidence base for preventing violence against women for preventing abuse within the disability service system, funding for disability service providers to implement workplace primary prevention strategies, funding for primary prevention programs and compulsory training for services responding to disclosures or suspicion of abuse.

WHW are clear that the current taxation arrangements for workers in the NFP sector offer a more competitive wage than would otherwise be possible through funding alone. If tax benefits such as salary packaging were removed, NFPs would require an increase in funding to continue to offer the equivalent in wages.

Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence

Submission from Women’s Health West
Family violence response and family violence prevention, as separate but interlinked systems of effort, promise to deliver a society in which all Victorian women and their children can live free from violence. To achieve this we require sustained effort, focus, investment and strategic intent, from government and community. The recommendations put forward in this submission have been developed with this in mind. We see them as steps that will have the greatest impact in the short and medium term, to achieve the longer-term goal of a society in which violence against women is no longer tolerated or conceivable.

Women’s Health West is a member of the Western Integrated Family Violence Partnership (Women and Children) and contributed to this submission that focusses on the regional and statewide structures that will support integration and thus an improvement of the family violence response system.

Women’s Health West is a signatory to this joint submission from 129 organisations calling for urgent investment in affordable housing and services in Victoria to address the current links between family violence, housing and homelessness across the state.

Parliament of Australia
WHW provided 19 recommendations to this parliamentary inquiry into domestic violence outlining practical measures to promote gender equity, dedicated funding for primary prevention of violence against women across key sectors including respectful relationships education, continued funding of programs designed to prevent women and children from becoming homeless as a result of domestic violence and review current levels of funding to ensure services are able to meet increasing demand.

July 2014

Joint letter to the Attorney General regarding the Federal Disability Discrimination Commissioner’s role

Together with six other signatories, WHW wrote in support of the continuation of the federal Disability Discrimination Commissioner’s role, which will become vacant in July 2014. We consider the role as an essential mechanism for progressing the rights of Australians with disabilities, and value the nonpartisan, high-level leadership the commissioner provides.

April 2014

Response to proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975

Following an open letter signed by 155 organisations in Dec 2013, WHW again recommended against repealing Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Unaltered, the Act provides a strong statement from government that racist behaviour is unacceptable in all areas of Australian society. We argued that repealing Section 18C would dilute efforts to combat racism in Australia.

Australian Government Department of Education
WHW recommended that respectful relationships education be more specifically and consistently included across the Australian curriculum and other relevant learning areas. We also recommended the inclusion of both age appropriate and relevant sexuality education, that respects the diversity of human relationships and includes HIV/AIDS and STI prevention information.

Women’s Health West participated in the community consultations to inform the development of a health and wellbeing plan for the GLBTI community, which is proposed in the Victorian Health Priorities Framework 2012-2022. Our submission argues that action is needed across multiple settings where GLBTI communities experience violence and discrimination. We also highlight lack of specialised sexual and reproductive services that are youth and GLBTI friendly in Melbourne’s west, in comparison with other regions.

WHW’s submission argues for need to redress harmful stereotypes, stigma and violence that undermine the health and wellbeing of people with a disability and contribute to their exclusion from social life. We recommend that intersectional experiences of gender and disability are given greater attention in policy planning and development, particularly in relation to access to sexual and reproductive health services, information and education, and initiatives to prevent and respond to violence against women with a disability.

WHW’s submission argues gender stereotypes have a significant impact on discrimination in the workplace related to pregnancy, parental leave and returning to work after parental leave, resulting in different experiences and consequences for women and men. We recommend stronger education, capacity building initiatives and action to enforce workplace laws relating to pregnancy and parenting discrimination, including strategies for negotiating flexible workplace practice.

National Centre for Excellence to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children

WHW’s submission argues that in working towards a society in which all women and their children are free from violence, it is vital that we undertake significant work in the prevention of violence against women before it occurs – namely, primary prevention. The NCE are ideally placed to provide the national leadership that Australia strongly needs in building the evidence for effective primary prevention practice.

Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration – Legislation Committee

WHW’s submission, based on Women’s Health Victoria’s submission, recommends not to pass the Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill into law. While we do not support sex selective abortion, there is little evidence to suggest it is prevalent in Australia. Restrictions on abortion are not an appropriate way of dealing with gender inequality as they can impact on women’s access to abortion in general.

WHW argued that given the history of chronic underfunding of the community services sector, it is highly unlikely that reform will be achieved without the leverage of additional investment to make the system and capacity changes that are necessary to support reform.

Population Health Equity Branch, DH&HS, Tasmania
Women’s Health West responded to the draft Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill that is designed to bring laws related to termination of pregnancy into line with current clinical practice and community attitudes in Tasmania. We support the proposed legislation.

WHW’s submission argues that forced sterilisation is a gendered practice and a violation of human rights that has its origins not only in the historical control of women’s bodies and their sexual and reproductive lives, but also in the discrimination and exclusion of people with a disability from society. We advocate for its prohibition by law, as well as a number of non-legislative measures to prevent the demand in society for such procedures.

Law Reform Committee
WHW advocated for law reform and a clearer recognition of the gendered nature of sexting and the propensity of the practice to be harmful, non-consensual and a form of violence against women.

Department of Health
WHW advocated for a gender sensitive approach to be embedded within the PDRSS reform framework, as well as a series of recommendations aimed to better ensure that supports and services for women and girls enhance recovery and wellbeing.

May 2012

Child Aware Initiative Approach

Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Funding application for a specialist family violence consultant model aimed at building the capacity of mainstream and specialist services to better respond to the multiple and complex needs of children affected by family violence.

WHW recommends ways the strategy can be strengthened to ensure that people’s – particularly women and girl’s – rights to liberty and freedom from racial discrimination, violence and prejudice are protected and upheld.

This submission outlines WHW recommendations on how the state government can better ensure that the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2011-2015 achieves sustainable, equitable health outcomes for all Victorians.

Victoria is a leader in the primary prevention of violence against women. This proposal presents the case for incorporating violence against women as a new state-wide health promotion priority. This presents a major opportunity for the state government to further enhance this position and lead decisive action to reduce and prevent the significant social, economic and health costs of violence against women

WHW and Western Region Health Centre coordinated a submission with 33 recommendations to the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulation Committee inquiry of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 on behalf of 8 other community and women’s health services. WHW urged the government not to strip rights during this process and outlined ways they could strengthen the protection of Victorian women’s social, economic and cultural rights.

WHW recommended the Federal Attorney-General’s Criminal Justice Department introduce legislative and non-legislative reforms to end forced marriage and ensure that women and girls’ human rights to freedom and integrity are protected and upheld

WHW advocated that the Australian Association of National Advertisers review of their code of ethics direct the fashion, media and advertising industries to play an active role in bringing about long-term cultural change and protect the interests and rights of consumers, particularly women and girls

WHW supported four out of the five principles proposed to underpin the policy, recommending a diversity approach over a lifecourse approach and supporting the five priority areas set out by the Australian Women’s Health Network

WHW, working with other women’s health organisations across Victoria, asked Council candidates to commit to the Safe, Well and Connected: Victorian Local Government Action Plan for Women’s Health 2008-2012

Women's Health West acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we work, the people of the Kulin Nation, and we pay our respects to Elders and community members past and present. We express solidarity with the ongoing struggle for land rights, self-determination, sovereignty and the recognition of past injustices. We express our hope for reconciliation and justice.

Women's Health West acknowledges the support of a number of funding bodies including: